Writer: Gilbert Ralston
Director: Marc Daniels
Producer: Gene L. Coon
A few reviews ago, I had mentioned that if you had to show one episode to sum up what Star Trek was all about, it should be "The Devil in the Dark". I think that could equally apply to "Who Mourns for Adonais?" but for different reasons. If you want to show up the wacky campiness of Trek, and it's tendency to reduce complex sci-fi themes to occasionally goofy good vs evil confrontations, it's trope of putting women into barely there dresses, well -- let's say if you want to demonstrate the 1960s in Star Trek, this is a good episode for it.
Coming as it did in the late sixties, the episode explores the "ancient astronaut" hypothesis, which at the time was gaining traction and attention as a serious theory -- the idea that aliens had visited Earth in the distant past and imparted knowledge to ancient humans, guiding the growth of civilization and inspiring the myths of the gods. While Erik von Danniken's Chariots of the Gods had yet to be published, Carl Sagan's Intelligent Life in the Universe had already proposed the idea.
Oftentimes, I have a personal disgust at the ancient astronauts theory, as it essentially germinates from a colonial racist assumption, namely "how could these people [Nazca, Rapa Nui, Egyptian, Maya, etc] possibly achieve all this without help?" It's something that often sets me immediately against stories that use this trope. That said, "Who Mourns" manages to sidestep it by its choice of culture -- it's not the Egyptians or Maya who're learning from aliens this time, no, it's the culture of the Ancient Greeks, from which good old Western European culture claims descent. It is, for want of a better terminology, "us".
The set-up is this: a giant green hand of pure energy appears out in space and grabs hold of the Enterprise. It turns out to be the hand of "Apollo", who demands that crewmen beam down to the planet he is living on and worship him. With the ship locked in place, Kirk places Spock in command (Apollo thinks Spock too similar to Pan, and does not wish to see him), and beams down with Scotty, McCoy, Chekov, and Lt. Palamas, an expert in archeology and anthropology.
Turns out that thousands of years ago, the Greek pantheon was a group of space travelers with advanced technology who landed in Greece and stayed there for a while, content to be worshipped as Gods by the simple shepherds and primitive man. At a certain point, the Gods realized that humanity had "outgrown them" and they were no longer wanted, and they left Earth, and gradually one by one they faded away into nonexistence (or "there came a time when the old Gods died"). All except Apollo, who waited out in space, confident that one day humanity would join him.
Except Apollo has this strange notion that a humanity advanced enough to join him among the stas would then wish to return to a subserviant role as his worshippers. He offers the Enterprise crew to return to their simple life as herders and farmers, living to gather sacrifices and offerings for Apollo. Obviously, Kirk isn't into this. Humanity has no need of gods (although NBC insisted he also say "we find the One quite sufficient").
This is the other secret of how the episode manages to escape the usual "ancient astronauts" tropes -- the idea that Apollo is real and visited Earth in the past is but a science fiction construction to get us to the heart of what the episode is about, namely, the relationship between humanity and its gods. This is a theme that ended up entrancing Gene Roddenberry, and it's clear from his later career that he really wanted to explore it in a Judeo-Christian context, but for 1967 the Greek gods would have to do.
Ultimately, Kirk and the landing party reject Apollo, angering him long enough for Spock to blast his temple (source of his powers) with the ship's phasers. Apollo, drained of power, fades away like the other gods had, realizing they were right. After realizing that those gods gave the Greeks their civilization, which formed the basis for so much of his civilization, Kirk muses if perhaps they shouldn't have patronized Apollo for just a while.
However, in addition to its heady sci-fi themes, "Who Mourns" also features very over-the-top action, with Apollo and his pronouncements, and his tendency to attack people with his powers when they displease him, and his attraction to Lt. Palamas and his dressing of her in a classic William Ware Theiss dress. His relationship to her and her eventual betrayal of him is reminescent of Khan and Marla McGivers in "Space Seed", but luckily there's enough else going on that the cribbed plotline doesn't stand out too badly.
Michael Forrest's portrayal of Apollo is great. It must have been a search for the producers to find someone who could pull off haughty Shakespearean-esque dialogue, be extremely handsome, be ripped af, and be like a full head taller than William Shatner. But he pulls it all off wonderfully.
It's a good episode for the rest of the cast too. Coming down on the landing party affords Scotty and Chekov some good character bits they don't usually get. Scotty has a crush on Palamas, so he's constantly getting up in Apollo's grill, and Chekov provides wonderful comic relief with his earnestness and lack of filter -- when Apollo introduces himself, Chekov declares "and I am the Czar of all the Russias!"
In the "upstairs" plot, where Spock is trying to free the Enterprise of Apollo's grip, the mix of characters left aboardship versus on the planet means that Uhura and Sulu get a chance to really shine, and even Mr. Kyle the transporter chief gets more dialogue than usual. It goes to show that a lot of interesting oppportunities can be created simply by a choice of which characters go where and with whom in the story, as many of the "Other Four" can be highlighted if the "Main Three" are split up and not the only ones allowed on the landing party.
"Who Mourns" has moments where it devolves into campiness and melodrama, and it's not the best expression of these ideas, even in Star Trek, which would continue to explore the role of religion in people's lives as the franchise went on, but it gets points for doing it first, doing it well, and having a lot of great character moments for all the members of the main cast.
Rating: 3.5 out of 4
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